ouch
by pardonnez
Summary: The last battle has gone horribly awry and Hermione must face the aftermath in enemy territory.
1. ouch

Some have called me a traitor. I don't see myself that way. Besides, it's not as if they know the whole story. As if they care about the whole story- how i lost everything, how i lost everyone, how I was taken without my will, without my consent.

How i was degraded and abused, beaten and broken, my spirit like so many shards of glass on an unforgiving stone floor. And then, how, finally, I was remade in his image, I was given purpose and drive. HE gave me knowledge. He gave me power. And it was heaven just to belong once more.

oh i can see the sneer on your face already, my invisible judge: 'I wouldn't do that', you say, a righteous look on your face. 'I wouldn't change, i would simply stay true to my ideals through adversity'. Oh really? Are you sure? So...tell me, have you ever been punched? And no, a drunken brawl or a catfight doesn't count, with whiskey on your breath and sex on your mind, the whole night a series of hazy mistakes.

I mean, has anyone ever approached you in a calm collected state, and drawn back his fist and punched you right there, in the pit of your stomach, so hard that you bless the surprise and the shock because at first you don't feel it. But then even that slim shield falls and you feel sick and queasy like you just swallowed a baseball whole and its righty there in my esophagus and it wont go down and i find it hard to breathe.

And then, right after the nausea, I curse the day i went to biology class because I remember all the important bits of a woman;s body that are there and how I kind of want children and oh god am i permanently damaged? Are things inside me bruised and sick and bloody and broken?

Then, after all this has gone through my mind, its right then that you realize that oh my god, he can do that again and again and again if he wants and no one will stop him and I cant defend myself, tied here to this wooden chair. And it can all just keep on going and going forever until i do what he wants. I could just sit here stay here be here for so many days hurting. And my thoughts show in my face and i feel like telling him whatever he wants to know and he knows it too and I am ashamed.

And i say just stop please just stop, and i think maybe i can lie to him and mix some truth in so he wont know. And maybe that shows in my face too, because his right hand goes behind his back and when his limb reappears my eyes are riveted to the gleaming thing in his fist. it is long and curved and bright and it gleams at me, winking innocently and then he brings the knife closer and closer to my neck and i hide relief that it will be so soon finding shed-that I may die with my conscience clear of betrayal. but then the knife lowers to the underside of my breast.

It makes a slow circle and my breast is exposed, clear as day, but I feel no humiliation no embarrassment, only a hot choking panic. and i wish he would punch me-had i been complaining before? kick me whatever just dot cut off- dont cut off my breast. 'please, I will tell you anything i swear to god i swear to god' and the knife lowers and the man smirks and i am in the clear and the panic dies down enough that I feel such hate, such a great hatred towards the man who has reduced me to this state that I memorize his features , Not that i could see his entire face because of the mask. his height his build, so that one day i dot know how, i dot know when, I will avenge myself upon him.

Yes i gave him names. and dates. and places and passwords. and i planned his death as i did so. and when i could think of nothing else that would be of use to him there was silence. and he approached me once more. the knife came out to under my exposed breast.

"I told you everything! i swear i told you everything!"

he leaned close to me and as he cut upwards he whispered, "I know"

And that was his mistake for as long as I live i will never forget the smell of him, like steamed rice and jasmine and earth.

he left then, in a flurry of black robes and blood.

I heard him speak as he closed the door.

"granger give you too much trouble?"this was a strange voice, not my captor.

"no no all women are the same, threaten the tits and they come bawling."

"so why the mask lestrange? its not as if she can escape", silence. "I mean if you don't mind me asking..."

"The dark lord wants her matriculated into one of the research teams, unfortunately we cannot afford to lose any brain power until the item has been recovered. and i would rather not have a mudblood vendetta on my hands. apparently she's ingenuitive. Now i would just love to stay here and"...blah blah blah, I had tuned out the rest.

lestrange. lestrange. lestrange but i had to listen, I had to listen! focus, girl!- but the pain , the blood! my breast just lying there on the floor for all the world like a bad practical joke.

I was still in shock though, and I relished it. i listened, hard

"oh, and noxley, before i forget, send a healer in there before she dies of blood loss. and quickly! the dark lord will be most displeased and it will be entirely on your head!"

"right away!"

nothing else was worth listening too. things were getting cloudy. i wondered if there was a potion for regrowing breasts. I chuckled into unconsciousness.


	2. dancing

I woke in a gray room, and some primeval sense told me I was near underground The light had a strained quality, like it was working too hard to reach this far down. When I woke, the first thing I did was to sit up and check my chest. There they were. Jesus god, Jesus god thank you thank you thank you. Not that everything was good now, far from it. FAR from it. But whatever torture they threw at me, whatever humiliation I would surely have to endure, at least i could do it whole.

And that is all i had time to think before i was interrupted.

A woman came in, and oh she was beautiful. I felt self-conscious just breathing. She was one of those people you don't want to be around because you start to make comparisons with yourself...and you are the one that comes up short. She looked like a mix of races, and she had gotten the best from all of them. I think it was the hair that did it. it was so long and wavy and thick and everything i wanted mine to be when I was little and too young to accept that I would be stuck with this frizzy mess the rest of my born days.

All this passed through my mind before she even had time to close the wrought iron door. I wondered why someone so beautiful was ranked so low that she had to check on prisoners. I almost asked before i thought better of it.

And suddenly there was light, so much of it so quickly that i threw up my hands. My eyes throbbed, and when I was able to open them once more the room was laced with a golden natural looking light. I sat at the edge of my bed, anxious for whatever trial would come next.

The ridiculously gorgeous woman sat in front of me, ankles crossed, hands folded, a small smile on her perfect face. She opened her mouth.

"_Crucio_"

I fell off the bed. No matter how many times this happened, i never developed any resistance, any immunity. I remember the last time I visited my parents, how I told them about the cruciatus curse. They asked me what it was like.

_I sat in a sweet country rustic kitchen, at a weathered table, scarred with use and memories. I looked at my hands as I answered, my fingers tracing the veins in the wood. _

"_It's as if....as if your very best friend told you were ugly, except not just that. It's all of that but add to it the feeling of a paper cut on that skin below your eye, but also the sensation of someone taking a hammer and breaking your leg with it, but taking their time about it. Going slow. And it's the dread you feel when an army vehicle drives up to the front of your house and a man in a crisp green uniform hands you a letter and says 'I'm sorry for your loss.'" I looked up to see them watching me in horror. i looked at my parents without blinking. "And it's like you have had a very hard pregnancy and a sick and sore, and you go into labor it's so painful and there are no drugs and you think you are going to die and then when they say just push one more time and your relief is laced with panic and you say why is he so quiet, why isn't he crying and the doctor frowns and opens his mouth and your world falls apart."_

"_It's all of that, and so many more different kinds of pain, that I can't describe, but they are all there, just waiting to jump you."_

"Get up, mudblood." her voice was nothing like her face. It was rough wet wool. The kind that clings to the skin and leaves a sickly smell that won't wash off. These thoughts were interrupted by a kick to the ribs. I screeched. It seemed as if wet-wool was a fan of steel-toed shoes.

"Get up before I loose my patience!"

I scrambled to my feet heedless of grace in the fear she would crucio me again.

She sat back down in her chair and looked at me, scrutinizing my face.

"Now..." She looked down at a card she held, "Granger, is it? You have been presented with a most desirable opportunity to better your current state."

I perked my ears and strived to look grateful. My heart was working too hard, beating too much, too fast. I was very afraid in my torn blouse and filthy corduroy skirt and my dirty face and my stupid ugly hair.

"Now, I have heard that you used to have a modicum of intellect, so your life has been spared for the present." Her eyes turned hard and flinty, "I suggest that you do not make me regret this opportunity."

I tried to look scared and humble, "I won't miss. I won't."

"You will be tested of course, for hidden motives. Should you pass, I wish you to work in research. You will be given certain tasks. The speed and accuracy with which you complete those tasks will determine your status."

"Tested?"

She smirked at me. "You, along with the rest up for research positions, will be tested by the Dark Lord...in let's see...three minutes?"

I gasped.

She got up and walked to the wrought iron door, opening it with a few mumbled words. Only at the threshold did she stop and look back at me. "I strongly suggest you follow me."

I scrambled after her, sweat running down my back, even as my fingers froze.

_Time to dance with the Dark Lord. _I chuckled grimly.


	3. teeth

**~A/N I cherish reviews, thank you. **

I played with the cyanide tooth in my head. To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream...ay, there's the rub... The rub indeed. Would I still be welcome in heaven? Once I could have answered definitively- but now, after I had accepted so much death, now that iIsee casualties as numbers and not lives... Now I was no longer so sure. My tongue left the tooth for a later perusal.

I walked blindly behind her through dark stone halls with filthy floors. I had no shoes on and the detritus insinuated itself in the myriad of sores under my feet. She had a stride bespeaking confidence and power, and I in my wretched state, struggled to match it.

Wet-wool made a sharp left and I saw more wrought iron doors that were eerily similar to mine. I wondered how many of us were here- who I would find if only I had the power to blast down this door. Or the next one. People I believed long dead? I hoped not. I sent a fervent prayer to my sleeping God that they were all killed and rotting in the graves.

I did not bother making a plan to fool Lord Voldemort. It was superfluous. All the plans I could ever create in this short span of time would be decimated upon his first visit with my battered neurons. And should he visit them, should he try to see the plans of the African resistance that lay inside my skull- well, the tooth was there for a reason. But now was not the time to think of that.

Instead, I tried to assemble the bare scraps of information I had into a plausible scenario. A group of mudblood researchers working for Voldemort was ludicrous and I discarded it immediately.

Voldemort couldn't trust his own followers to do a simple task competently, never-mind an enemy who had nothing to gain by helping him. I don't even think there _is _an item. I mean, what item could he possibly have need of?

He had immortality, admittedly at the cost of his looks, but immortality nonetheless. He had power- in Great Britain assuredly and most of the Continent, excepting the East Bloc.

I did also hear he was struggling with North America and Africa, but we had all known it was just a matter of time.

There was of course the old standby that somewhere out in the world there was a magical shoelace or something equally ridiculous that would make you into the most powerful wizard in the world. Always a possibility.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe this was all some sort of twisted game, but no, I discarded this idea too. Such an elaborate ruse is pointless, Voldemort had nothing to gain.

And if the 'quest' objective was a ruse, then why lie to me? It is not as if I am in a position to object to whatever it is.

This whole thing was irrational, and it scared me, because it meant I was missing an essential piece of

information . I was walking into this blind with nothing but my wits to get me out alive.

And then I halted as Wet-wool came to a sudden stop, my nose scant centimeters from her silk clad shoulder. We were at a threshold of black-veined eggshell marble. A set of dark stained wood doors loomed over us. Chubby gold cupid door knockers distracted me from my plight with their incongruous hilarity.

Wet-wool turned to me, "You will keep your eyes lowered and your hands in plain sight at all times. Exercise stupidity at your own risk." I nodded dumbly, but she had already turned back and taken a deep breath.

As she raised her arm to the knocker I noticed that it was unblemished. So that's why a Pureblood was checking on prisoners. She was a greenhorn, a new recruit.

The doors opened, seemingly of their own accord, but I had long ago ceased to be impressed with such things. What I _was_ impressed with was the sheer size and scope of the chamber we entered.

With its spacious interior, magnificent ceiling, and ensconced walls, it reminded me of a desecrated cathedral. In fact, I was sure of it. one could still detect the paler square of marble where a tabernacle once stood. Was nothing sacred?

The world had changed. Wine had turned into water, and water to blood, still thick and hot and red and raping anything clean and unsullied until it cried out. Death Eaters stood in clusters where pews should been, and on a raised dais, a jet throne supplanted the altar.

I had no wish to look upon that throne. No wish. Wet-wool proceeded to the center of the room, and faced the throne. I huddled behind her in an entirely useless campaign to remain unnoticed.

On bended knee, Wet-wool waited for permission to speak.

."Betras. Speak and be heard."

So many times I have heard his voice described as 'high and cold', and often wondered what exactly that meant, what it sounded like.

Betras, huh? I think I preferred Wet-wool.

I understood now that the description was accurate, but misleading. It was more like his voice was too powerful to come out all at once, so when words did leave his lips, they had extreme force behind them, like shaking a bottle of soda pop, and only allowing the bottle to be open a little at a time. It was a horrible voice.

I had to make my move now, I knew. I had to catch him off guard and keep him from prowling inside my mind. With that thought firmly in mind, i did the unthinkable. Straightening my frame, I side-stepped Betras to take the place of prominence en face de the throne. Looking him directly in the eye, I spoke to Tom Marvolo Riddle for the first time in fifty odd years.

"Hello, Tom. Long time, no see."


End file.
